Sakura's Root
by Raiku.Nishimura
Summary: Sakura was different than most little girls. Sure, she dreamed of being a ninja and squealed with the rest of them when Sasuke passed by but she wasn't alone in her head. Oh no, not only did she have "Inner", her strong-willed personality, she had a mysterious informant, Eirin, who whispered advice and wisdom to her. It's time to see how this new Sakura will change the world.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

* * *

Sakura was six when she heard the voice inside her head.

The other kids had been picking on her – like usual – and she was sniffling in the small wooded area in the park, trying to keep quiet and hide from them. After a couple minutes of silence, she started to relax.

_'__RUN!'_

She was so startled by the sudden command she scrambled forward on instinct, past two blurs that thudded into the ground she had just been curled up on. The two blurs – which revealed themselves to be the mean older kids– yelped in pain when they crashed through the sharp twigs of the bush she had been hiding in. She paused momentarily in shock. They were older academy students, already training to be ninjas, yet there they were, bloody and in pain, while she didn't have a scrape on her.

_'__Stop daydreaming, Gaki, and KEEP RUNNING!'_ Growled an unfamiliar voice.

She spun around, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from, but stopped when it said,_ 'Do you have any idea how pissed those two will be when they stop whining about their little boo boo's?'_

Oh, that's right, she had to hide!

Ignoring the oddness of the situation she started to sprint away from the terrible duo, but they had already recovered and were hot on her heels.

_'__Go left!'_

She obeyed, just dodging a hand that would have fisted in her shirt. The fingers that skimmed over the fabric made her break out in a cold sweat.

_'__Concentrate on where you're going, you don't want to trip on a root or something stupid.'_ Continued the voice, _'I'll tell you where to go.'_

Sakura, while terrified of the two big kids behind her, started to become scared of the voice. It was low and rough, and the sound of it reverberated in her head as she ran. It hadn't hurt her, but it wasn't friendly or nice at all and it seemed to be following her, which was creepy. She didn't trust it at all, and decided to not listen to it anymore.

The decision came too late, as the next second she was skidding across the ground face first; She had stumbled over a root.

The voice didn't say anything as one boy dragged her up by her pink tresses, but she could feel the irritation of her mysterious follower.

* * *

The voice didn't speak to her for a while after that, so she had started to wonder if it was just her imagination.

The bullies were meaner than usual today, probably because they were embarrassed that she'd managed to evade them and hurt them a bit too. They'd even gone so far as to rough her up a bit, normally they just taunted and tease her till she cried.

But then her day had gotten better.

A girl, named Yamanaka "Call me Ino-chan!" Ino, had come to her rescue. She thought that maybe, just maybe, Ino-chan was her friend. The thought made her grin as she lay in bed that night and she imagined all the fun things they'd do together.

Then the gravely voice came again, _'Sorry, Gaki. I won't talk to you like that again.'_

Despite her previous reaction to the voice, now that she wasn't running or hiding from bullies she found the sound to be rather… soothing. It wasn't nearly as harsh and growl-like as this afternoon. Instead it sounded more scratchy, like the user had a sore throat – Sakura immediately felt pity for the person, she had gotten a cold last year and she knew the dry, raw feeling in one's throat was absolutely horrible – and the R's were more throaty than she was used to, almost like they were being gurgled. The voice wasn't reverberating in between her ears either, it was much softer and the tone was more gentle and apologetic. It wasn't scary at all.

Still, as she looked around her room she whispered the question that had been bothering her during her run, "Where are you?"

There was a slight pause before the voice returned.

_'__Don't freak out, Gaki,'_ She cautioned. Sakura was curious, but also surprised because the voice, which she had subconsciously assumed to be a boy at first, was obviously female. The voice was lower than her mother's, but much higher than her father's and overall just _felt_ like a woman's.

_'__I'm in your head.'_

Sakura blinked in confusion. In her head? That wasn't possible, people don't have voices in her head. Well, she amended, they don't have complete strangers in their heads. Sakura knew about her violent and stubborn self that she had dubbed 'Inner Sakura' or 'Inner' for short, but the voice wasn't Inner.

"Are you like… Inner?" She asked, mumbling the last part in embarrassment. She had never told anyone about Inner before and was slightly nervous to be admitting it. Then she realized that maybe the voice didn't know what she was talking about, and started to explain when the voice responded.

_'__Yes and no… It's complicated, Gaki, and it doesn't really matter. Look, I just wanted to apologize. I shouldn't have ordered you around like that today, and I won't be doing that again.'_

"It's OK," Sakura whispered, "You helped me avoid the mean kids."

_'__Yeah, that didn't really end well though, did it? In any case, I won't be doing that again, so don't worry about it, OK?'_

"Sure," Sakura agreed, though mentally she was still grateful that someone had tried to help her and wouldn't have minded if the voice helped her again next time. She was sleepy though, and so she just agreed sweetly and said goodnight.

Right before she fell asleep though, she asked one more question, "Um, voice-san, what is your name? I'm Haruno Sakura."

There was another pause, so long that Sakura thought she might not respond, before the soft, rumbling voice said, _'Eirin. You can call me Eirin.'_

* * *

Over the years Eirin ('_No honorifics, Gaki'_ she had insisted) proved to be quite kind and helpful when she talked to Sakura, and her voice lost the grating edge that it had the first time they spoke. It was low and soft, and while Eirin always spoke slowly it was never in a patronizing manner, it just served to smooth out her tough and coarse personality. She also began to call Sakura by her name instead of "Gaki", which seemed to be her preferred go-to nickname for anyone under 30.

The more time Sakura spent talking to Eirin, the more Sakura came to admire her.

Eirin was full of contradictions: She was compassionate yet rude, calm yet volatile, observant yet distracted, opinionated yet understanding. When Eirin seemed to be hypocritical, it was just because Sakura didn't understand the entire situation, because Eirin didn't voice judgments until she had thought the situation though seriously. In the end, Sakura decided that Eirin's contradictions just made her balanced and flexible.

Despite becoming so confortable with Eirin's presence, she was still a riddle wrapped in an enigma (which was one of her favorite sayings she'd heard Eirin say). While friendly and familiar, Eirin never shared any facts about her life or who she was. Sakura didn't even know what her favorite _color_ was, let alone anything personal, yet most of the time she completely forgot about it. She knew Eirin so well personality wise that she never felt like Eirin was hiding anything from her, and therefore she never asked any questions. Eirin was Eirin, and that was that.

After that first day Eirin refused to help Sakura in the same way she had the first time, saying that it was because Sakura needed to learn how to defend herself. She did, however, provide help in other ways whenever Sakura asked for it. She gave Sakura tips for studying, cooking, memorizing or little reminders to do chores or not to forget something.

The key was for Sakura to ask, because while Eirin was perfectly willing to do something, she would never offer. It was because, like Eirin had promised all those years ago, she wouldn't tell Sakura what to do and only occasionally provided advice after reminding Sakura, multiple times, that what she was going to say was just an opinion and one of many possible options, and that Sakura _must_ think it through herself. In general though, Eirin rarely talked at all during the day even if asked since, according to Eirin, it would result in Sakura tripping or something.

Sakura tried to convince her otherwise, but Eirin was too stubborn and Sakura eventually gave up.

When Sakura was 12 she started to train.

It had been a normal day at school, but as soon as Sakura got home Eirin spoke.

_'__Sakura, I have an idea.'_

Curious, Sakura quickly dropped her bag onto the ground and plopped down beside it, closed her eyes and steepled her fingers. It was her signal that she was going to thought-speak. Thought-speaking wasn't any harder than actually speaking, it was just the same actually, minus the last step: saying it out loud. Usually, when people think things, they don't put them into words or sentences until they want to communicate the idea. In that case, they start to form the sentences in their head before and while they speak. With thought-speech it was the same, just that she never ended up opening her mouth, the benefit of this being that now Eirin could listen to Sakura without it looking like Sakura was talking to herself if anyone walked in on them.

_'__Oh, you talking to me first, this is unusual,'_ Sakura teased, _'To what do I owe this pleasure?'_

**_"_****_Yeah, what's up Eirin-Onee-sama?"_** Inner piped in. She had become rather fond of Eirin over the years and refused to call her just Eirin, giving her the honorific of Oni-sama. Originally she wanted to call Eirin "Sensei" or "Shishou" as her sheer power of will, shown time and time again, made Inner her avid disciple of the mysterious mental compatriot but Eirin was _very_ firmly opposed to both (surprisingly so, even going so far as to refuse to talk for days after Inner had called her by the titles to show her disapproval). Inner eventually settled on Onee-sama, and though Eirin wasn't fond of it she allowed the title with only a little grumbling.

_'__Stop that, it's creepy when you start talking like me, Sakura, and I'm not your sister, Inner.'_ Eirin replied, annoyed.

Inner didn't even deign the comment worthy of a response.

_'__Yeah, yeah, sorry about that,'_ Sakura replied instead, though not repentant in the least, and quickly changed the subject before Eirin started rambling on about "Respect". _'Now what was your idea?'_

Eirin was apparently in a good mood because she ignored the counterparts irritating comments and plowed on with her idea, as Sakura asked.

_'__Remember that Hyuga parent that was sitting on that bench in the park? He was reading a book.'_

Thinking hard, Sakura shook her head. She hadn't noticed.

Eirin replied by dredging up a memory for her of a frowning, stiff looking man.

_'__This guy.'_

_'__Oh Yeah, what about him?'_

_'__Well, I read some of the book while you were screeching – sorry, _talking_ – with Ino about Sasuke and there was something that could be worth a shot to try.'_

She paused, collecting her thoughts. Sakura patiently waited for her to continue and Inner grumbled at Eirin's blatant disapproval of Sasuke, though both knew better than to try and rush the sassy, slow-speaking confidante.

_'__It was a book about meditation, but this particular chapter was about using meditation to fortify against the mind arts. It said that you can put up barriers, traps and guards in your mind to stall anyone who entered, and even how to hide and camouflage memories or information so that mind-walkers can't find them.'_

_'__Mind arts? Mind-Walkers?'_

_'__Mind arts include all jutsu that involve the user, who is sometimes referred to as a Mind-Walker, seeing into and entering the mind of another. This doesn't include genjutsu though, because while genjutsu does involve messing with someone's head the user doesn't actually _see_ inside the victim's head. There are very few methods and jutsu considered mind arts, though every hidden village has at least one person who can preform some form of it, though with varying degrees of success. None, however, have anywhere close to the amount of talented mind-walkers as Konoha, who has an entire clan of them: the Yamanaka. And before you ask, yes, that's Ino's clan. It was one of her clan members who wrote the book actually. I've never seen it before though, so I'm guessing its from the restricted section of the Konoha Library. Understandable, that book has a lot of high quality information on how to evade an entire subcategory of jutsu, not to mention nullify an entire clan's prized technique. We're lucky to have been able to get a peak'_

It never ceased to amaze Sakura how much Eirin knew or learned. While Sakura had been absorbed in her rivalry with Ino, Eirin had managed to notice the book and its value then read a considerable amount of it. On top of that, she had no idea when Eirin had learned all of that information about that type of jutsu and her rival's (and best friend's) clan. She had no doubt Eirin had mountains more of information about things Sakura couldn't even fathom, which made her wonder why Eirin had gone through the trouble of mentioning it, even going so far as to talk to her first.

_'__Wow, OK. But why are you so interested in that?'_ Sakura asked.

_'__I'm getting to that. While mind fortifications are extremely valuable – and I recommend trying to do it yourself, even if it's just to satisfy your rivalry with Ino – that's not what I'm interested in. The thing about setting up mental fortifications is that they are a form of mind arts in themselves, since you are entering your own mind to do so. I think it would be interesting if you were to enter your own mind and meet me and Inner, face to face.'_

Sakura agreed to the plan immediately, but didn't manage to enter her own psyche that day. Eirin said that it was probably normal that Sakura couldn't do it the first try since she wasn't used to meditating, but Sakura wasn't satisfied with her results. Not only was she extremely curious about meeting Eirin (what did she even look like?), Eirin's offhand comment about besting Ino with mind fortifications really stuck and she was determined to master the first step of the process.

But after about a month Eirin gently advised for her to slow down her practice, as the graduation exam was coming up. Sakura was reluctant at first, but after thinking about it for a bit she saw the logic in Eirin's proposal. After all, Eirin would still be there after the exam.

* * *

As she walked out into the sunlit courtyard, spring in her step, Sakura felt completely overjoyed.

She had passed! She had passed the graduation exam! She was a ninja!

Even Eirin's ominously amused _'Congrats'_ didn't deter her good mood.

Briefly she saw Naruto sitting dejected on the swing, no headband in sight, but she brushed it off. Of course he didn't pass, he was an idiot after all. Yet she felt a slight pang of sympathy. Eirin had taught her to think things through and to "never judge a book by its cover" and while she didn't _like_ Naruto by any means…

Making up her mind, she walked up to Naruto and said, "Sorry you didn't pass, hope you have better luck next time."

Naruto just smiled his big grin and exclaimed, "Thanks, Sakura! Congratulations on graduating!"

Sakura, pleasantly surprised by Naruto's reply (though he was still annoying) didn't notice the sadness lingering in the boy's eyes, nor the horrified silence of Eirin.

Deep in her mind Eirin swore. Things were already changing.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

Waking up with her soul attached to Sakura Haruno had been an unwelcome surprise.

Eirin, which wasn't her real name, but it was closest thing in this language, hadn't always been a disembodied soul attached to a young girl's body.

Her name had been Erin Pike and she had been an English language and literature professor at Tokyo University in Japan.

She had grown up in a rich New England family that had fallen on hard times after the fortune had been passed onto her father, who had spent the vast majority of it stupidly. Her mother, who had raised herself back up to comfortably wealthy after her own family had lost it's fortune in a similar manner, had prevented her husband from doing the same mistake until their divorce, but after he had met a younger, and equally financially clueless, woman and married her all the hard work had been for nothing. The money disappeared within two years of their marriage, and both had to now rely on their low paying jobs as teachers to support themselves and their two children.

Erin was the oldest who took it upon herself to protect her little brother, Henry, from her father's and mother's accidental emotional abuse. The two fought bitterly throughout the children's childhood, with her mother's no-nonsense attitude clashing with her father's self-entitlement. The two children could never understand how they had gotten married in the first place. It seemed like the only thing her parents had in common was that ability to simultaneously put enormous pressure on someone while still making them feel like a failure.

Erin tried to combat this with gentle kindness and support for her younger brother, who returned it with unconditional love and, when he grew to an impressive 6'2", physical intimidation and protection from her enemies.

Of which she had quite a few, Erin's smarts, talents and steady pride herself rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

While Henry relied on Erin for support as a child, Erin had taken solace in the stories of great heroes and heroines from fiction to get through the day. Among her favorites had been Uchiha Itachi, who had protected his little brother till his death.

The two were as thick as thieves throughout their lives, even when there were countries that separated them. Erin, who's love for anime had spurred her love of Japanese culture, secured herself a teaching position in Japan, which earned her enough money to send Henry to a top notch, and very expensive, university in England. Henry had, luckily, really taken an interest in finances and, after graduating, made his way up the corporate ladder in an enormous financial firm. Within five years of graduating, Henry was already making triple what Erin was and traveling from Hong Kong, New York and Tokyo on a monthly basis.

Money had never been an issue between the two of them, as they had already seen the horrors of what it could do to the greedy, but they made sure to send a healthy amount to their parents, particularly their father, to keep them aloft.

Erin had grown up fast and had become a mother and role model to Henry at an early age, and therefore didn't know how to become someone's lover. She had many close friends, whom she mothered incessantly, and she was a great teacher. All her students loved her and she loved them all, taking great care in securing them happy futures, but she didn't think of her own. She never considered any of her, admittedly few, boyfriends as anything more than passing whim and never got married.

She never saw the need. Henry had gotten married at 23, to a lovely Japanese girl with a sharp mind and sharper tongue, and had twin girls that she would love and spoil as much as she wanted. Especially since with both of the parents work schedules, they had decided to live in the "Pike Family Compound", as Erin called it, so that at least one of the three of them were always there to raise and look after the girls. The compound was really just a main house and a smaller house separated by a garden, but her brother found the name amusing so it stuck.

She took care of her nieces like a second mother, and they both grew up with the love of 3 parents.

When she passed away from cancer at the young age of 28, surrounded by her family, friends and students, she was quite content with her life. Her only regret was that she wouldn't be there to teach and nag her loved ones a little longer.

* * *

So, waking up with her soul attached to Sakura Haruno had been an unwelcome surprise.

It was the sort of like thinking you had finished a long race, coming in second place, only to see you had only reached the half way mark. Sure, you had the chance to come in first instead of second now, but you still felt annoyed that you were tricked and had such a long way to go.

Didn't quite know what was happening at first when she woke up in an odd sports bra, spandex short, and a short sleeveless dress…thingy… with slits cut from the hips on both sides and a neckline that cut a the way down to her belly button. She had no shoes, but had some silver anklets that came with matching silver cuffs on her wrists and upper arms that, due only to the placement as they were actually quite pretty, reminded her a bit of manacles. The torc that she had worn when alive was still in place, a testament to her Pike family lineage, which could be traced back to Celtic and Gaelic tribes.

The outfit was the least of her worries though, as she was now translucent and floating above the tiled roof of a small, two story house. She panicked for a moment, cartwheeling through the air in surprise, before slowly accepting that she had become a ghost or spirit of some sort.

She had rose into the air, looking at the Japanese styled buildings and the enormous Hokage Monument – That had given her her second shock of the night and caused a whole new panic.

The third panic came when she realized she could only float so far in each direction, before the cuffs on her arms and legs stopped her, like she had hit a wall that her body could pass through but the jewelry couldn't, and set out to find the source of the problem, which turned out to be a baby with a tuff of pink hair and baby mobile decorated with Sakura blossoms. Erin was no idiot, she knew immediately that this was Sakura Haruno.

The child could not see her but, from what she could tell, could hear her. So she floated around the girl silently, reading over people's shoulders and spying on people to amuse herself.

She had watched the girl grow, determined to stay silent and not influence the girl's life, but she was a protector at heart and could only bear to sit by and do nothing for only so long (and, if she was being completely honest, she was bored and needed someone to talk to). She compromised and kept her help simple, because if she helped Sakura study would it really change that much?

But then Sakura had talked to Naruto after the exam.

This wasn't good.

* * *

_'__This is taking _forever_,'_ Sakura whined.

Eirin didn't respond to Sakura's whine, not that she had been expecting a response. Eirin had been uncharacteristically silent since graduation, but Sakura wasn't too worried. Eirin rarely talked to her during the day.

She was waiting with her new team, which consisted of Sasuke (**_"Cha! Complete success!"_**_) _and Naruto (**_"Uhg."_**_) _but there sensei was late.

Ridiculously so.

They had been waiting here for hours, and their teacher had yet to show up.

Naruto had the brilliant idea to try and prank their sensei, which Sakura warned was completely _idiotic_.

Apparently not as stupid as their sensei it seemed, as he _fell for it_.

Seriously were Sasuke and her the only smart people on this _entire_ team?

* * *

_'__You jerk!_' Sakura hissed '_You knew this was coming!'_

She could feel Eirin cackling at her predicament. Her sensei had dropped the news that they needed to pass his test on top the graduation exam to actually become ninja, and that his test had a 66% failure rate! You didn't need to be a genius to tell that team seven was _doomed_.

And Eirin had known, she was sure of it – that teasing congratulations Eirin had given was clue enough – though she was still mystified as to _how_ her companion had known.

But that didn't matter, because at them moment she was too pissed to care.

_"__Why didn't you tell me?"_ She growled, furious.

_"__Would it have made a difference?"_ Came Eirin's mocking reply.

_"__Of course it would have! I could have…"_

Thinking hard she realized that she really couldn't thing of anything she could have done. But she wasn't ready to admit defeat, especially with Eirin's barely suppressed mirth pressing down on her mind.

_"__Yesss?"_ Said Eirin, drawing out the sound in a teasing manner.

_"__Oh, shut up!"_ She snapped, unable to come up with a proper response.

Eirin responded with a chuckle and left her with a taunting, _"As you wish, Sakura."_

* * *

Sakura crouched, body pressed down close to the earth, and watched her new Sensei use the world's most unconventional tai-jutsu move on Naruto.

_"Seriously? This guy's a total weirdo,"_ She thought.

_"Most powerful shinobi tend to be… quirky,"_ Eirin replied, _"So keep your head in the game. This guy is a lot more talented than he'd have you believe."_

Sakura didn't have much time to think on the advice, because her Sensei's voice spoke up from behind her back.

"Second lesson: Genjutsu,"

Sakura stared in horror at the injured and dying Sasuke.

No! How could this happen? How could this happen to Sasu–

_"Snap out of, kiddo,"_ Eirin growled.

Still slightly dazed and confused from the genjustu, Sakura couldn't quite figure out the meaning of that statement.

_"What did Cyclops-Sensei just say?"_

Finally, Sakura remembered and quickly brought her hands in the correct formation to break Genjutsu, shouting "Kai!" and opening her eyes … Only to be knocked out by Kakashi who flew out the bushes before Eirin could shout a warning.

She glowered at the man who knocked her anchor to the mortal world out with a kunai hilt and watched him as he studied Sakura.

"Hm. Better than expected but too slow."

_"That's cheating,"_ Eirin grumbled, trying to burn holes in his forehead with her glare, _"You were moving way faster than any genin could."_

He paused, tensing while his eyes scanned the area, like he could _feel_ her stare. The shock caused her to blink and break her glare, which caused Kakashi relaxed and pull out his orange book after a moment.

"Must've imagined it," He mumbled, walking away from the unconscious form.

Eirin stared in shock, before going after him and floating above him, body upside-down as her arms waved across his line of vision and eyes glued to his face.

_"Oi, Sir Porns-a-lot can you see me? Can you hear me?"_

When he didn't respond or show any sign of hearing her she floated down dejectedly, righting herself and perching on his shoulder with the elbow supporting her pouting face resting on top of his spiky hair. She peaked down again, hoping for some sort of reaction, but seeing none she sighed.

_"Well, I suppose I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. But I really wanted to have a conversation with someone my age, Sakura's great and all but I miss being able to talk to an equal,"_ She said, not expecting or getting any response.

Still, she stayed perched on his shoulder for the rest of the test, literally reading over his shoulder the entire time. It was no great work of literature but a little smut every once and a while never hurt anyone, and it was funny to sit on him as he walked around completely unaware of his spiritual piggy backer.

As she followed Sakura home she thought that playing around with an unsuspecting Kakashi might just be her new favorite pastime.

* * *

They passed! Team Seven had passed!

_"__Congrats, I knew you could do it,"_ Eirin said, voice turning slightly cryptic near the end.

Sakura brushing her hair in her room, still glowing after the success earlier that day, and blushed slightly at the praise, but Inner said, "**_Cha! I know we're awesome but you could have warned us Kakashi-Sensei was tricking us!"_**

_"__What makes you think I knew anything about that?"_

Sakura frowned, annoyed, at that, _"Come on, Eirin, of course you knew. You probably figured it out immediately. Isn't that why you told me 'Breakfast is the most important meal of the day' when I left this morning? You knew he was tricking us!"_

_"__You needed to learn the lesson on your own,"_ was all that Eirin said.

_"__But what if we'd failed?"_ She hissed, more annoyed now that she thought about it.

_"__Then you wouldn't have been prepared to be Genin. I'd rather you fail rather then you, or your friends, die because I gave you an easy way out."_

Sakura, still annoyed, just harrumphed and slammed down her brush, getting ready to sleep. Eirin was just being dramatic… Or was she? Sakura slowed a bit at the thought. Teamwork was really important…

_"__And, Sakura, you know that I would've helped you a bit if you really weren't getting the hint right?"_

Sakura deflated completely at that.

_"__Yeah,"_ She said, _"I know. It was just… embarrassing. I thought I was a lot better than I was."_

_"__I don't know about that, you passed which is pretty much the opposite of 'embarrassing'. And I'm proud of you for realizing that you're not as strong as you thought. Recognizing your own weakness can will you that much stronger."_

Sakura went to sleep feeling very content that night.


End file.
